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Reprinted from the Journal of Geology, Vol. X, No. 7, October-November, 1902 



THE GEOLOGIC RELATIONS OE THE 
HUMAN RELICS OF LANSING, 
KANSAS 



WITH AN EDITORIAL ON 



THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AMERICA 

AND A REVIEW ON 

KA KA BIKA NSING, by /. V. Brower 



T. C. CHAMBERLIN 



PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 



THE GEOLOGIC RELATIONS OF THE HUMAN 
RELICS OF LANSING, KANSAS. 

Under the title "A Fossil Man from Kansas," Professor Wil- 
liston announced in Science of August I, the discovery of human 
remains in alluvium near the mouth of a ravine opening on the 
flood plain of the Missouri river near Lansing, Kansas. He gave 
a careful description of the circumstances of the discovery, of 
the nature and condition of the skeleton, and of the enveloping 
deposit. He confidently excluded all forms of intrusion and of 
burial by creeping or sliding, attested fully the true fossil nature 
of the remains, and referred them to that stage of the postglacial 
period when the Missouri river was running forty or fifty feet 
higher than now. 

Previous to this there had been references to the discovery in 
the press, which had attracted the attention of Mr. M. C. Long, 
curator of the museum of Kansas City, who visited the locality, 
secured as many of the bones as practicable, brought the matter 
to the attention of neighboring scientists, and through them to 
the scientific world. 

In Science of August 29, under the title, "Man in Kansas 
During the Iowan Stage of the Glacial Period," Mr. Warren 
Upham gave a brief statement of his observations and conclusions 
based on a visit to the locality on August 9, in company with 
Professors Winchell, Williston, Haworth, Mr. Long and others. 
Mr. Upham regarded the overlying deposit as loess of the Iowan 
age, and concluded that the skeleton had been "entombed at the 
beginning of the loess deposition, which would refer it to the 
Iowan stage of the glacial period, long after the ice sheet had 
receded from Missouri and Kansas, but while it still enveloped 
northern Iowa and nearly all of Wisconsin and Minnesota." 

In the American Geologist for September, he presentdd the 
subject with greater fullness under the title, " Man in the Ice Age 
at Lansing, Kansas, and Little Falls, Minnesota." As before, 
the inhumation was referred to the Iowan stage of glaciation, 

745 



% Transfer 



746 



T. C. CHAMBERLIN 



comparison was made with other human relics regarded as dating 
from the glacial period, and estimates in years of the duration of 
the several glacial stages were added. 

In the same number of the American Geologist, Professor Win- 
chell commented at length editorially upon the Lansing skeleton. 
He referred with implied approval to the article of Mr. Upham, 




Fig. i.— Side view of skull and femur found in the tunnel. From a photograph 
furnished by Mr. M. C. Long. 

supplied additional information relative to the history of the dis- 
covery, to the deposit embracing the relics, and to the nature and 
condition of these. He regarded the main material penetrated 
by the tunnel as common loess, and located the skeleton in the 
unstratified limestone debris that lies below it. " It is hence pre- 
loessian, but probably not much older that the loess." He 
discussed at some length the age and relations of the loess, and 
concluded: "It will require, therefore, considerable further and 
careful examination of the loess sheets of Iowa, and of their 
relations to the till-sheets, as well as the marginal features of the 
till-sheets themselves, to enable any one to fix with any certainty 



HUMAN RELICS OF LANSING, KANSAS 



747 



the age of the Lansing skeleton more exactly than is above indi- 
cated. That it dates from glacial time, at some remote point in 
the complex history of that age, is about all that can be affirmed 
from the present state of knowledge of the drift deposits." 

On September 20 the locality was visited by Professors 
Samuel Calvin, W. H. Holmes, Erasmus Haworth, R. D. Salis- 
bury, W. C. Hoad, Dr. G. A. Dorsey, Messrs. M. C. Long, F. R. 
Feitshaus, Martin, R. T. Chamberlin, and the writer. This visit 
was made at the request of Dr. Haworth and other geologists. 
A second visit was made on October 26 at the request of Pro- 
fessor Holmes and Mr. Gerard Fowke to inspect the excavations 
which the latter had made under the direction of the former. 
Mr. Long, Mr. S. J. Hare, and Dr. Haworth joined in this 
inspection. The Messrs. Concannon tendered all necessary 
privileges, as well as aid and hospitality. The following dis- 
cussion is based on the data collected in these visits. 

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS. 

While the development of the science of river action in most 
of its phases is one of the gratifying achievements of recent 
decades, it is still to be confessed that a certain few of its aspects 
are among the laggard features of our science, and, as it happens, 
these are the ones most critically involved in the interpretation 
of the Lansing remains. It may not be amiss, therefore, at the 
outset to consider academically these special phases of fluvial 
action so far as essential to the present discussion. 

1. Scour- and- fill. — One of these scantily appreciated subjects 
is the great depth and important function of scour-and-fill in 
certain of our large rivers. In this action both erosive and 
depositional work proceed simultaneously. It is well recognized 
that erosion and deposition may take place simultaneously in the 
stream bed and upon the flood plain, but the great depths and 
wide extent to which certain river bottoms are scoured out and 
promptly refilled is not always realized, nor the quick and con- 
stant reversals of this action. This is true especially of powerful 
rivers that flow upon a deep bed of loose material, as is the case 
with most of the large rivers whose bottoms were built up by 



748 



T. C. CHAMBERLIN 



glacio-fluvial deposits during the ice age. The great examples 
are the larger members of the upper Mississippian system, and 
pre-eminent among these, the Missouri river whose bottom deposit 
is mainly sand and silt of an unusually mobile type. The vain 
struggle of the United States engineers to restrain the destructive 
shiftings of this river within bounds amenable to navigation and 
to permanent improvement on its banks, has brought out data 
which amply illustrate this profound instability, but this can only 
be fully appreciated by a detailed study of the reports of the 
chief of engineers. 1 Mr. L. E. Cooley, in his report for 1879, 
(p. 1066), makes the following among many other pertinent 
statements : 

"To understand the difficult nature of the problem presented 
here [Eastport bend, on the Missouri river much above Lans- 
ing, but where the conditions are not essentially different J, it is 
necessary to consider that at high-water, the banks are under 
water to a depth of three or four feet, and the current velocity 
is as great as seven or eight miles an hour. The erosion of the 
banks for several years past has been at the rate of about 1,100 
feet per annum. When this was stopped bv our revetment, a 
tremendous scour was set up, carrying the bed of the river thirty 
or forty feet below its normal position ; in fact, the scour 
undoubtedly extended to the solid rock underlying the valley." 
And again (loc. cit., p. 1071), "In many of the borings which 
have been made here, indurated clay balls with vegetable matter 
covered with a coating of sand, along with a motley collection 
of gravel stones, are found within a short distance of permanent 
strata. A precisely similar collection containing gumbo balls in 
a soft state was dredged from sixty feet depth at the works. 
These balls are from cutting banks, and the proof is conclusive 
that since the river has been running in silt banks as at present, 
scour has occasionally, at least, reached permanent strata at 
seventy to ninety feet depth." 

Mr. Concannon informed me that eleven years ago the 

1 Professor Todd has called attention to some of these remarkable facts in his 
bulletin on the " Moraines of Southeastern Dakota and their Attendant Deposits," 
Bull. U. S. Geol Survey, No. 158, pp. 150, 151. 



HUMAN RELICS OF LANSING, KANSAS 



749 



engineers found a depth of water of ninety feet in the Missouri 
at a point about a quarter of a mile from his house, in what was 
then the channel of the river, but which is now abandoned and 
filled so that water covers the spot only at the highest stages of 
the river. Until about eight years ago the course of the river 
lay near the mouth of the valley in question, but is now diverted 
to the opposite side of the bottoms. 




Carboniferous limestone 



Fig. 2. — Diagram of the changes in the bottom of the Missouri river at Blair 
Bridge in 1883, as recorded by Engineer E. Gerber. Figure taken from Todd's Bul- 
letin United States Geological Survey, No. 158, p. 151. 

An accurate demonstration of the extent and rapidity of 
bottom changes is furnished by the accompanying diagram- 
matic record of the soundings at the Blair bridge, Nebraska, at 
the intervals indicated, in the year 1883, quoted by Todd on the 
authority of Mr. E. Gerber, assistant engineer F. E. & M. V. 
railroad. 

An inspection of this will show that a skeleton might have 
been deposited on the surface of the Carboniferous rock bottom, 
much as in the case of the skeleton at Lansing, on the 28th of 



750 



T. C. CHAMBERLIN 



July, 1883, an< ^ have been buried in alluvium as deeply as the 
Lansing skeleton by August 18, only twenty-one days later. 
Without doubt, within a few years it would be covered by sixty 
feet of alluvium through the migration of the channel of the 
river. 

2. The prevalence of this profound reworking. — To illustrate 
how fully and effectually the whole of the bottoms of the Mis- 
souri river in this region are involved in its meanders and their 
shiftings, and how its bordering bluffs are being forced to retire 
by the impingement of the currents at its bends, a reduced copy 
of the United States Engineers' map is here introduced (Fig. 3), 
the section being about forty miles north of the locality in ques- 
tion, but representative of the conditions in all this portion of 
the river. It will be noted that practically the whole valley 
bottom is involved in the migrating loops, and that every part of 
its silt bed is liable to be disturbed again and again by scour 
and redeposit ; indeed, it is probable that this has happened 
repeatedly to many portions, if not to most portions of the 
alluvial filling. It is perhaps not greatly beyond the facts to 
regard the whole bottom filling as being shifted, step by step 
down stream by successive scour and fill. This is more espe- 
cially true of the borders of the bottom filling next the bluffs 
where the arrest and turn-about of the powerful stream gives 
the greatest rotatory and deep-disturbing effects. 

3. The absence of the great Dakota system of terraces. — In the 
widening of the bottoms thus still in progress doubtless lies the 
reason why so few distinct remnants of the grand systems of 
glacial terraces and glacio-fluvial deposits of Dakota, described 
by Todd, 1 are found in this lower portion of the Missouri river. 
It is probable that the whole tract once occupied by these, and 
more besides, is now embraced by this widened, and still widen- 
ing, zone of lateral encroachment. This is the less remarkable 
when we recall that the Missouri river was formed by the union 
of many preglacial streams of various connections whose lower 
courses were blocked up by the ice invasion so that they were 

1 Loc. cii., pp. 128-140. The general nature of these is given in a later portion of 
the present paper. 



M N 

M rJSSOlTKI 
ST., JOSE 


p .-• / v ■; 7J\ 

RIVER ''. \ /• /i"\V 
'II , MO. 






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j n: 




/ y 

-i \ 

-..**. ' >,-■. ' : '- ; ->'''> 




1 

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v. 







Fig. 3. — Reproduction of map of the Missouri bottoms at St. Joseph, Mo. From 
the Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers for 187Q. 



752 



T. C. CHAMBERLIN 



forced to unite and flow along the ice border. At first the newly 
assembled streams flowed either in the valleys of the smaller 
streams that entered into the combination, or in a new trench 
cut by the new stream across the cols between the united valleys. 
Thus at first it would not as a rule come into possession of a 
valley bottom of capacity adequate to the united floods, and in 
normal adjustment to them, and hence found little opportunity 
to make deposits. To the limited extent provided, its burden of 
glacial detritus was thrown down in these new and inadequate 
valleys, and as a natural consequence, it has been removed in the 
later process of working out an adequate valley and a suitable 
adjustment. The river is still engaged in making this adjustment. 

4. The significance of valley adjustment. — If a great change is 
brought about in the drainage system of a region, such as the 
creation of the Missouri river by the junction of numerous ante- 
cedent rivers, and a new channel is developed to fit the new river, 
there at once arises the question whether the existing features of 
the valleys tributary to the new channel belong to the old or 
the new regime. In part they usually belong to both, and it 
becomes necessary to discriminate between these parts. This 
may be done by the study of their adjustments, a method espe- 
cially applicable to small tributaries that have no permanent 
streams, as in the present case. The tributaries of the old 
system were adjusted to the old channel and cannot be presumed 
to be adjusted to the new channel, except in the rare case of exact 
coincidence of the old and the new channels. In relation to the 
new system, inherited tributaries usually present either the buried 
or the hanging type, or else they have become refashioned into 
adjustment to the new system. Such refashioning affects espe- 
cially the mouths of tributaries. It often so happens therefore 
that refashioned configuration in conformity to the new system 
may dominate the mouth of a tributary, while its upper portions 
retain almost wholly the old configuration. These facts warn us 
of the danger of assigning great antiquity to fluvial deposits in 
the immediate mouths of tributary valleys if these valleys are 
adjusted to the present river or the present bottoms ; especially 
is this true if the tributary is scarcely more than a ravine, and 



HUMAN RELICS OF LANSING, KANSAS 



753 



its erosion and deposition are intimately conditioned by its rela- 
tion to the river. In all such cases there is a strong presump- 
tion that the erosions and depositions at the mouth of such a 
tributary, such especially as have brought it into adjustment to 
the present and to the recent stages of the river, were contem- 
poraneous with those stages and not accidental inheritances. 

5. Meandering as a cause of alternate erosio?i and deposition. — 
A meandering river with a deep, readily-shifted, bottom-filling 
of the Missouri type imposes upon its tributary valleys alternate 
stages of excavation and filling. These result (1) from the action 
of the aggressive bends of the river loops against the mouths of 
the tributaries, and (2), the replacement of these, after a time, 
by the flood-plain peninsulas that lie within the loops. More 
specifically, it is the alternate cutting of the stream itself, work- 
ing hard against and under the mouth of the tributary valley, 
followed by the building up of the river's higher flood-plain 
across the mouth of the valley. The first causes the waters of 
the adjusted tributary to erode; the second to make deposits in 
the mouth of the tributary; for in the first stage the axis of the 
tributary opens out on the river itself, which may be twenty or 
thirty feet, or more, lower than the upper flood-plain, and hence 
the tributary then has its lowest and best opportunity to discharge 
its waters and their detrital burden. Besides this, the river itself, 
while in this aggressive attitude, sweeps into the mouth of the 
tributary in its flood stages and aids in its excavation, and the 
rushing by of the river's strong current drags out by friction, on 
the principle of draught, the waters of the tributary, and, by 
acceleration, aids their excavating action. It is at this stage pre- 
eminently that the tributaries cut down their valleys into adjust- 
ment with the main stream bed. On the other hand, when the 
active impinging bend of the river has shifted elsewhere, and in 
its stead a flood-plain is being built up across the mouth of the 
tributary the drainage of the latter is checked, and if the tribu- 
tary be small and its waters incompetent in comparison with the 
flood-plain aggradation of the river, the valley mouth will be 
filled to a height corresponding to thatof the highest flood-plain. 
Now, the difference between low water and high water for the 



754 



T. C. CHAMBERLIN 



Missouri river is given by Abbott as twenty feet at St. Joseph, 
above Lansing, and as thirty-five feet at its mouth; its extreme 
range is somewhat greater than this. 

Further, if the mouth of the tributary be blocked by the upper 
flood-plain beyond the time of the latter's growth the wash from 
the tributary will build a delta, or fan, upon it, and this further 
growth will continue until the waters from the tributary valley 
have built up a suitable gradient for themselves across the flood- 
plain to the river. This only holds good in valleys of incompe- 
tent drainage which cannot cut and maintain a trench for them- 
selves. If the tributary valley has a large, competent stream it 
will maintain a channel-way across the flood-plain to the river, and 
less aggradation will result from the shifting of the meanders, 
but that is not the case in hand. 

If excuse for this academic statement is needed it is found 
in its special application to the case in hand; for either 
action of the kind just set forth is to be accepted as an elucida- 
tion of the case, as in the preferred interpretation that follows, 
or it is to be shown incompetent for such elucidation before we 
permit ourselves to go back of this action to earlier agencies. It 
is a vital principle of good practice that the agencies and phe- 
nomena nearest at hand be first considered, and, if the case 
requires, be eliminated, before recourse is had to more remote 
agencies. This is peculiarly true when, as in this case, the 
agencies closest at hand in time have quite certainly swept away 
the most of a more ancient record in making their own. 

THE SPECIAL CASE. 

The topographic e?ivironment of the relic-bearing deposit. — The site 
of the human remains is at the bottom of a small, short, rather 
steep-sided valley opening out on the flood-plain of the Missouri 
river. More specifically, the valley is less than a mile long, and 
less than half a mile wide, measured from crest to crest, and is 
about 160 feet deep at its mouth. The slopes on either hand are 
rather steep and nearly meet at a rather sharp angle in the axis 
of the valley, except that this is modified by the channel or dry 
run which forms narrow bottoms and little bluffs near the mouth, 



HUMAN RELICS OF LANSING, KANSAS 



755 




Fig. 4. — Topographic map of the tributary valley at Concannon's. From a sketch 
by Professor W. H. Holmes. 



756 



T. C. CHAMBERLIN 



for the valley is not occupied by a permanent stream. The slope 
on the southward side is about as steep on the average as can be 
profitably cultivated; that on the north side is steeper, so that 
while the upper slope is cultivated the lower slope is left to nat- 
ural growth and is partially occupied by quarries. On this steeper 
portion there are some small, vague, bench-like lines of uncertain 
interpretation; quite likely they are structural features depend- 
ent on the alternation of the more and the less resistant layers of 
the underlying strata. About twenty-five feet from the base of 
the slope there is an ill-defined bench that seems to be made up 




Fig. 5. — Section through the mouth of the tributary valley and the ridges on the 
north and south. Merely diagrammatic. 

of lodgment matter adjusted to a former higher axis of the val- 
ley. There is a correspondingly vague bench on the opposite side. 
The ridges are composed of Carboniferous limestone, mantled by 
Pleistocene deposits (Fig. 5). The glacial drift is represented by 
some bowlders and smaller rubbish, but it is so scant and patchy 
as to be negligible as an element of the topography. The upland 
surface is mantled with loess and loam, the main portion of which 
is probably referable to the Iowan stage. The lower slopes are 
covered by wash from the uplands and by the skeleton-enclosing 
deposit which lies near the axis of the tributary valley and con- 
stitutes the vague benches above mentioned. 

The back country is strongly rolling, the valleys fairly sharp, 
and their debouchures into the Missouri bottoms abrupt but 
well adjusted, and in their adjustments they represent the sev- 
eral normal types as well as several different stages. The 
bottoms of the Missouri are sharply defined by bluff faces. This 
is particularly so where the little valley in question joins it. 
The Missouri here runs southeastward, and the ridges bounding 



HUMAN RELICS OF LANSING, KANSAS 



7S7 



the tributary valley on either side have been abruptly truncated 
by the waters of the Missouri and present a sharp talus face 
toward the bottoms. The recency of this face is a declared 
feature and is significant. Where not occupied by rock, the 
slope is formed of talus marked by slides and slump terraces so 
new as still to preserve their distinctive features. A very per- 
sistent slide terrace runs along the base of the south ridge at 



Fig. 6. — View looking northward across the mouth of the tributary valley, show- 
ing Concannon's house at the left, and the truncated slope under it, the mouth of the 
valley just beyond, and in the center the north bluff with its truncated face overlook- 
ing the Missouri bottoms, on the edge of which the railroad lies. The bluff is about 
160 feet high. 

about the horizon of the skeleton's burial, ending nearly opposite 
it, and about ten rods distant. It is not intended here to 
suggest an immediate connection between this slide action and 
the burial of the relics, but merely to show the recency of the 
Missouri's work across the mouth of the tributary valley and 
within a few rods of the critical locality. This propinquity is 
brought into greater emphasis by noting that if a line be drawn 
from the crest of the talus slope of the north bluff to the crest 




758 



T. C. CHAMBERLIN 



of the talus slope of the south bluff, it will run back of the 
skeleton's site. The significance of this close relation lies in 
the alternate depositional and aggradational work presumably 
done by the Missouri river at and in the mouth of the valley 
when it was truncating the adjacent bluffs on the one hand, and 
forming the adjacent bottoms on the other, in accordance with 
the principles of action outlined above. The accompanying 
contour map and photographs (Figs. 4 and 6-1 1), with their 
explanations, make these relations more definite. 

The precise locality of the relics is more closely defined by 
an additional feature. A deep ravine starts near the crest of 
the ridge bounding the tributary valley on the south, and running 
nearly parallel with the truncated face overlooking the Mis- 
souri bottoms, joins the axis of the valley a few rods west of 
Concannon's house (see Fig. 7). East of this ravine there 
was doubtless once a round-back ridge of the usual erosion type 
with another ravine still to the eastward, but the encroachment 
of the Missouri has cut away the eastern half and substituted a 
steep talus slope. There now remains a sharp-edged spur 
descending toward the axis of the tributary valley, with a talus 
face on the side next the Missouri bottom, and a more gentle, 
yet rather steep slope to the ravine on the other side. Follow- 
ing down this sharp-edged spur, it is found to flatten somewhat 
for a few rods at about sixty feet above the bottom of the 
valley, much as though the flattened portion might be a remnant 
of a small terrace, structural or otherwise. Farther on, this 
breaks down, with rock exposure, for about ten feet to another 
flattening for another few rods. On this lower shoulder Mr. 
Concannon's house stands, beyond which the spur ends in a 
sharp descent of about thirty feet to the dry run of the valley. 
On the west side of the house the surface descends more gently 
to the ravine above described. It is under this westward slope, 
about one hundred feet back from the edge of the talus slope 
facing the Missouri bottoms, and about seventy feet southward 
from the little bluff facing the dry run of the valley, that the 
human remains were found buried about twenty feet deep. 
These details are given with some tediousness because they bear 



HUMAN RELICS OF LANSING, KANSAS 759 



upon the interpretation of the time and mode of deposition of 
the formation embracing the relics. 

As already stated, the tributary valley is not occupied by a 
constant stream, but by periodic run-off. The channel at present 
is in a slightly aggraded and apparently still 'aggrading stage. 
It opens out upon the Missouri bottoms about two hundred feet 




Fig. 7. — View of Concannon's house and environment seen from the south-south- 
west. In the foreground and center is the ravine leading down from the south, 
described in the text. The locality of the skeleton is nearly under the small white 
spot near the dark clump of trees on the slope at the left of the house. The ravine 
joins the tributary valley just at the left of this and the latter joins the Missouri bot- 
toms in front of the house. The Missouri bottoms stretch across the upper part of 
the view, with the river (in its new course) and the opposite bluff in the extreme back- 
ground. 

from the locality of the relics, with perfect adjustment, and its 
recent deposits were slightly fanned out upon the bottoms of 
the main valley on our first visit, but had been largely washed 
onward by the rain that intervened before the second visit, illus- 
trating the nature of the present adjustment. The depth of the 



760 



T. C. CHAMBERL1N 



aggradation deposit is unknown to me, but it is probably not 
many feet, as the aggradation stage has but recently been 
inaugurated by the detour of the river. On the north side the 
spur next the Missouri bottoms grades down to this lower grada- 



Fig. 8. — View from near the mouth of the tunnel looking northeastward across 
the bottom of the tributary valley, showing the gradation of the footslope of the north 
bluff into the Missouri bottoms seen at the right. 

tion plain and the combination of lower slope and present 
bottom deposits is similar to that of an earlier date on the south 
side which contains the human bones (Fig. 8.) 

The present aggrading washes have made a little bottom in 
the lower twenty rods of the valley, with meanders and little 



HUMAN RELICS OF LANSING, KANSAS 76 1 

bluffs where the loops bear against the older deposits of the 
valley. It is in the face of the little bluff on the south side, 
and about four feet above the valley bottom, that the mouth of 
the tunnel that disclosed the human remains is located. The 
base of the tunnel at its mouth is ten or twelve feet above the 




Fig. 9. — View in the mouth of the tributary valley looking out upon the Missouri 
bottoms and showing the entrance to the tunnel at the extreme right. The material 
from the tunnel modifies the natural bottom, as seen in the foreground. 

adjacent Missouri bottoms (Fig. 9). The lower four feet of the 
little bluff is formed of a thick bed of Carboniferous limestone; 
above this there is shale. The tunnel was started just above this 
limestone and driven back on its gently rising surface. It was 
carried by the Concannons seventy-two feet back from the face 



762 



T. C. CHAMBERLIN 



of the bluff, and at its inner end its base is twenty-one feet five 
inches below the surface, an air-shaft permitting a tape-line meas- 
urement. 

The relics found in excavating the tunnel represent an adult 
who had lost several teeth and a child whose teething stage, 
according to Professor Williston, implies an age of about nine 




Fig. 10. — Front view of the skeleton of the adult and two of the associated bones, 
with the fragment of the child's jaw in the foreground. From a photograph furnished 
by Mr. M. C. Long. 

years. The former is represented by a skull, femur, and other 
bones; the latter only by a fragment of a jaw (Fig. 10.) The 
bones of the adult are said to have been found near the inner end 
of the tunnel, and between one and two feet above its base. They 
were disarranged and at slightly different depths, but it is suffi- 
cient for present purposes to locate them at seventy feet from 
the entrance and twenty feet from the surface. The fragment 
of the child's jaw was found about sixty feet from the entrance 
and within a foot of the bottom of the tunnel. These state- 
ments relative to the discovery of the bones rest upon the testi- 



HUMAN RELICS OF LANSING, KANSAS 763 



mony of Michael T. and Joseph F. Concannon, who dug the 
tunnel. There is no ground to question their authenticity. 

The associated deposit. — At the mouth of the tunnel the lower 
three or four feet of the deposit is composed mainly of lime- 
stone fragments and earthy debris, a part of the latter seeming 
to come from the Carboniferous beds, a part from the glacial 
drift or the loess, and a part from the river and valley wash ; in 
short, a rather heterogeneous mixture. Some parts are highly 
oxidized and iron-stained and some parts are relatively fresh and 
calcareous. At about three feet above the floor on the western 
side there is a definite layer of dark, highly calcareous clay less 
than three inches thick, but it does not appear on the opposite 
side. It is thinner in the inner portion of the tunnel, where the 
cross cut of Mr. Fowke shows that it rises on the west side and 
pinches out irregularly within a few feet. The upper part of the 
deposit at the entrance is a mottled silt of loess-loam aspect, 
containing occasional stony fragments. Its response to acid is 
irregular, sometimes giving no obvious effervescence, sometimes 
a feeble action, and sometimes a prompt and marked response. 
Sometimes the action is concentrated in definite spots, as though 
it came from a bit of limestone. The action is not that charac- 
teristic of typical loess. Even in the top of the tunnel some 
limestone fragments were seen seven or eight feet from its base. 
Even in the inner end of the tunnel the silt is notably mottled, 
in part irregularly, and in part in bands, more or less horizontal, 
as though controlled by stratification, though the staining is 
probably secondary. Acid tests indicated that calcareous matter 
is present, but that it is not abundant. 

These observations were made on the tunnel as seen on our 
first visit. Under the direction of Professor Holmes, Mr. Gerard 
Fowke later made a series of supplementary excavations in dif- 
ferent directions to develop the formation further and secure 
additional fossils. A full statement of the results will doubtless 
be given in Professor Holmes's report. He has kindly permitted 
me to use such of the data thus gathered as are serviceable in 
the geologic determinations. Without entering upon precise 
details, it will suffice here to say that the tunnel was extended 



764 



T. C. CHAMBERLIN 



southward until the rising of the Carboniferous beds in the bot- 
tom made further extension in that direction unpromising. Only 
a few feet beyond the end of the original tunnel Carboniferous 
shale was found overlying the heavy stratum of limestone, and 
the surface of this rose as though the foot slope of the ridge 
had been reached. The correctness of this inference is scarcely 
open to question as the whole environment supports it so 
strongly that it had been anticipated. The ease with which this 
shale was eroded, compared with the underlying limestone, 
readily explains the flat limestone surface on which the tunnel 
was run. 

In an excavation on the west side of the tunnel, a shallow 
trench was found in the upper surface of the limestone running 
nearly parallel with the tunnel and also parallel to the axis of 
the adjacent ravine. With little doubt this trench was the axis 
of the ravine in the erosion stage just preceding the filling up 
of the ravine by the relic-bearing deposit. This further aids in 
explaining the nearly horizontal, but slightly rising, base of the 
tunnel, since it locates it alongside the axis of the ravine on a 
resistant bed (see Fig. 13.) 

An offset tunnel at right angles to the original tunnel was 
run eastward eleven feet from the place of the adult skeleton. 
It developed about four feet of disturbed shale and mixed debris 
in its base, the vague structure lines of which dipped eastward 
irregularly. It had the appearance of a talus slump that had 
crept down the slope of the adjacent rock surface, and warped 
and slightly tilted itself backwards according to a common habit 
of such masses. This doubtless took place before the upper 
deposit was laid upon it and while yet the ravine was open, i. e., 
about the close of the erosion stage. In the east end of this 
offset, the silty formation has been slightly fissured along a nom- 
ber of lines by tensional action and the little crevices filled with 
a grayish-white soft deposit that effervesced very promptly with 
acid, implying calcium carbonate. The riveing tension probably 
came from the tendency of the mass to creep on the underlying 
rock surface, since this rises to the east and so furnishes a slop- 
ing base of shale which arrests the waters descending through 



HUMAN RELICS OF LANSING, KANSAS 



765 



the more porous mass above and which, thus becoming wet, pre 
sents an unctuous slippery surface favorable to creep. 

On the west side of the tunnel the excavation was carried 
from near the point where the fragment of the child's jaw was 
found westward at right angles and was met by an open cut from 




Fig. II. — View from the westward showing the trench dug by Mr. Fowke from 
the ravine toward the tunnel with which it connects below. The original tunnel runs 
from left to right under the two trees seen beyond the end of the cut. The child's jaw 
was found at the intersection of the cut (extended by tunnel below) with the original 
tunnel just at the left of the trees. The adult skeleton was found nearly under the 
second light spot to the right of the two trees. 

the ravine. This open trench (Figs. 1 1 and 12) afforded an admi- 
rable opportunity to study the constitution and structure of the 
whole section from the lock floor to the surface through a depth 
of about twenty feet. The definite clayey band found near the 
base in the tunnel is here wanting As noted above, it pinches 



766 



T. C. CHAMBERLIN 




Fig. 12. — Nearer view of the open cut shown in Fig. n. The shadow obscures 
the larger portion, but the lighted portion on the left shows the absence of definite 
stratification, and indicates something of the mottled character of the deposit. 



HUMAN RELICS OF LANSING, KANSAS 



767 



out irregularly a short distance west of the original tunnel. Put- 
ting all the facts together, it would seem that this little stratum 
was laid down in the axis of the ravine shortly after the stage 
of aggradation began. As it scarcely reaches three inches in 
depth at its thickest point — averaging probably less than an 
inch — and is very homogeneous and peculiar, as well as very 
fresh and calcareous, it was probably formed at a single stage of 
inundation. Aside from this there is no distinct stratification or 
lamination in the whole section, nor any complete assortment of 
the material. The main material is a silt somewhat closely 
resembling loess, but unlike it in the particulars already pointed 
out. Through this silt, at all heights from the base to the sur- 
face, there are dispersed fragments of limestone, shale, and other 
debris incompatible with a typical loess deposit. The limestone 
fragments were sometimes several inches across. Mr. Fowke, 
who gave careful attention to the distribution of this material, 
affirms that it was found indifferently at all heights, and I care- 
fully verified this by an examination of the walls of the deep 
open cut. Small fragments of softened limestone were so abun- 
dant in some parts that the walls were mottled with the white 
chalky spots made by the spade in mashing and spreading them. 
There were also many bits of shale ranging up to an inch in 
length, not a few of which had been sufficiently weathered to be 
yellowish or brownish. These also occurred high up as well as 
low down in the section. 

I have said that there was no distinct stratification, lamina- 
tion or assortment in the section. There was some aggregation 
of the silt and the fragmental material. There were spots where 
the shaly and limy debris was sufficiently abundant to lend a 
gravelly aspect to the mass, but close inspection showed that it 
was not really assorted, laminated, or stratified. The agency of 
accumulation had obviously brought relatively more fragmental 
debris to these portions, or at least had left relatively more frag- 
mental debris in these portions, than in average portions, but the 
aggregation did not rise to the grade of typical assortment and 
lamination. That it is a wash product seems to me clear, but 
not a stream deposit nor a lake deposit, nor any other form of 



768 



T. C. CHAMBERLIN 



purely subaqueous deposition. I should identify it as a typical 
aggradation deposit of the ravine and basal-slope type where the 
hillside environment was Carboniferous limestone and shale 
mantled with loess. 

A few pebbles of drift and not a few pieces of charcoal were 
found in the section, the latter at different horizons. Many land 
shells and some additional bones were also found by Mr. Fowke, 
but no unios. These interesting features will doubtless be 
described in Professor Holmes's report. 

As had been anticipated, the excavations show that the 
extent of the deposit is limited, and that it was ^penetrated by 




■100 Fcct > 



Fig. 13. — Cross-section from ravine at the left to truncated face overlooking the 
Missouri bottoms (G) on the right. The section passes through the end of the original 
tunnel ( T) at the place of the adult skeleton (S). It shows the supposed original 
trench of the ravine in the surface of the limestone (A), the shale overlying the lime- 
stone, developed in the cistern and in the extension of the tunnel (C), the limestone 
blocks of the upper limestone under the house, and the deposit overlying the relics 
(B). The line marked 100 feet represents the distance from the place of the skeleton 
to the point where the truncated slope begins, not the whole length of the section. 

the tunnel nearly or quite at its greatest depth. Rock comes to 
the surface just back of the house, and in the excavation for 
the rear end of the house, Mr. Concannon informed me that he 
reached rock which he thought was of the regular quarry kind. 
In sinking for a cistern eighteen feet deep on the east side of the 
house, he went through about four feet of dirt, then about two 
feet of loose limestone blocks, and then about twelve feet of 
" soapstone," so hard that he had to blast it. This is undoubt- 
edly the Carboniferous shale encountered by Mr. Fowke in the 
extension of the tunnel. This makes it clear that the spur on 
which the house stands is formed mainly of Carboniferous beds 
and is merely mantled with the silt and debris formations. The 
accompanying cross-section is drawn approximately to a true 



HUMAN RELICS OF LANSING, KANSAS 



769 



scale (Fig. 13) and shows the probable limitations of the 
deposit. The extension of the tunnel shows that it thins to the 
southward, while the ravine intercepts it on the west. 

The surface configuration is that of a combined basal-slope 
and ravine-bottom deposit, i. e., of aggradation in the bottom of 
the ravine, combined with deposits lodged on the lower slopes 
in adjustment to the aggraded bottom. The structure of the 
deposit is in keeping with this interpretation. The little layer 
of calcareous clay in the tunnel seems to imply deposition in 
standing, or slowly moving water, i. e., a valley-bottom deposit, 
probably a back-water deposit. The absence otherwise of definite 
stratification or assortment of the material, and its complete resem- 
blance to secondary slope accumulations derived jointly from the 
loess and the underlying beds seems to require its reference to 
aggradational action. Professor Williston found the cast of a 
clam shell with attached valves in the angle between the wall 
and the roof of the tunnel about seven feet from the base. In 
the absence of satisfactory evidences of fluvial action at this 
height and in the presence of human relics, this may well be 
referred to human agency. 

INTERPRETATIONS. 

The case is perhaps not an absolutely declared one, and a 
wholly unreserved interpretation may not be warranted, but a 
very strong balance of evidence seems to point in a specific 
direction. Certain things seem to me clear : 

I. The deposit is not true original loess. It is a mixture of 
loess-like silt, Carboniferous detritus, water-laid clay and other 
debris. The Carboniferous detritus was obviously derived from 
the adjacent strata, in part by disintegration, in part by wear, 
and in part by fracture without much rounding. The loess-like 
silt was probably derived in the main by wash from the loess 
mantle of the adjacent hills, but in part also by winds from the 
Missouri bottoms ; possibly also in part by creep. Its charac- 
ter implies that some of the silt was brought to its present posi- 
tion without complete leaching, while most portions show 
evidences of exposure and weathering. From such differences 



770 



T. C. CHAMBERLIN 



of history probably arose the variations in color, texture and 
effervescence in response to acid, which were observed. The 
material of the one distinctly water-laid layer was probably 
derived from the Carboniferous shales at some special stage of 
erosion and inundation — some unusual storm and flood, perhaps 
— and was deposited without weathering, and remained undis- 
turbed except on its borders. 

2. The truncated faces of the adjacent Missouri bluffs, and 
the numerous slides on these faces, show that the Missouri river 
has worked extensively and effectively across the mouth of the 
tributary only a few rods from the site of the relics, and that this 
has been comparatively recent. 

The rather steep slopes of the tributary valley favor the view 
that the present fashioni?ig of these is recent. The main excava- 
tion of the valley probably dates back to the post-Kansan 
erosion interval, and this was perhaps preceded, and perhaps 
determined, by a preglacial valley. But the valley, as it is now 
fashioned, is pretty closely adjusted to the Missouri river bottoms 
which are features of recent origin, and this adjustment and the 
slopes a?id deposits i?ivolved in it is, by rather strong presumption, 
to be connected with the development of the adjacent Missouri 
channel. The age of the original valley and of the upland 
mantles does not concern us here, unless these lower deposits, 
well down in the axis of the valley, and at its junction with the 
great river bottoms, are surely inheritances from the older period, 
and not adjustment phenomena. 

3. The record of these earlier events is here very imperfect. 
Even the record of the more recent of the Pleistocene events is 
very scant where it should be abundant and decisive if the con- 
ditions of preservation had been favorable. In Dakota, where 
the Missouri river came into relation with the last stages of gen- 
eral glaciation within its basin, there are three great systems of 
terraces as worked out by Todd, 1 viz. : I ) " The higher bowldery 
terraces," varying from 500 feet to 350 feet above the Missouri 
and connected with the outer moraine of the Wisconsin stage ; 
2) "The lower bowldery terraces," varying from 350 feet to 

1 Todd, Bull. U. S. Geol. Surv., No. 158, pp 128-154. 



HUMAN RELICS OF LANSING, KANSAS 



771 



various lower levels at different points, and connected with the 
second moraine of the Wisconsin stage, and 3) a complex sys- 
tem of "silt terraces" ranging from 150 feet downward, three 
or four of these terraces often occurring at the same locality. 
These last have not been traced into physical continuity with 
any of the moraines, and doubtless represent in part the very 
latest stages of glaciation, and in larger part the postglacial 
stages ranging down to very recent times. A reference to Todd's 
descriptions will show that these are not mere strands or slender 
benches on the valley sides, but great platforms, sometimes a 
mile or two broad. Now all of these three systems, so magnifi- 
cently developed in Dakota, should ideally be represented in 
some way at the Lansing locality, but we have only the obscure, 
sloping shoulders already described, and the little deposit con- 
taining the relics. There is no sign that these belong to the 
first or second of the Dakota series which are directly connected 
with the first and second stages of the Wisconsin glaciation. In 
Dakota these terraces are formed of very coarse material, which 
gives them the title " bowldery," and this implies strong cur- 
rents fed by glacial debris. Normally, these high bowldery 
terraces should graduate down-stream into finer gravels, sands 
and silts, all bearing the distinctive marks of their glacio-fluvial 
origin. The relic-bearing deposit is not of this type, and is not 
overlain by this type. The most natural inference then is that 
the train of glacial gravels, sands and silts borne away by the 
Missouri waters from the ice edge in the more vigorous stages 
of Wisconsin glaciation was carried away from this part of the 
Missouri channel before the relic deposits were formed. This is 
the more to be supposed because the Missouri has here recently 
run hard against the highlands and truncated them, and the 
tributary valleys are steep and in this special case, short and 
rather sharp. Remnants of the true glacio-fluvial deposits in 
this portion of the Missouri river are rare, and an experienced 
Pleistocene geologist familiar with their habit would not expect 
to find them in the mouth of so narrow, steep-sided, and steep- 
bottomed a tributary as that at Concannon's. The probable 
reason for the scantiness of the glacio-fluvial record in this part 



772 



T. C. CHAMBERLIN 



of the Missouri valley has been given in the preliminary con- 
siderations. If neither of the strong bowldery terraces of so 
late a stage of glaciation as the Wisconsin are represented at the 
site of the burial, there is but scant ground to assume that the 
earlier and much feebler and much more erosible glacio-fluvial 
deposits of the Iowan are preserved. 

The natural conclusion is, therefore, that the little relic-bear- 
ing deposit in the valley at Concannon's belongs either to the 
same class as the silt terraces of Dakota, to which it bears a 
measure of resemblance, or to some later stage. 

Specific views. — While, as before remarked, the case is per- 
haps not a wholly declared one, and an unqualified identification 
may not be entirely warranted, the range of tenable interpre- 
tation seems to me to lie within narrow limits. 

I. The most conservative and the most probable view. — All the 
essential facts known to me seem to be explicable on the follow- 
ing lines which involve the minimum of action and of assump- 
tion, and which appeal only to the natural order of things. The 
first stage of essential action is assigned to a time when the chan- 
nel of the Missouri river ran immediately past the mouth of the 
tributary valley and was higher than now to such an extent as 
to be in erosive adjustment with the tributary at the top of the 
rather heavy limestone layer which lies just below the tunnel. 
It has already been noted that where a strong stream like the 
Missouri passes hard by the mouth of such a tributary, two 
effective conditions of erosion are supplied. The tributary has a 
low point of discharge and hence a high gradient, and its detri- 
tus is immediately swept away by the great river. During this 
stage the rock surface under the relic-bearing deposit was devel- 
oped by the removal of the shales above, and the lower slopes 
adjacent were measurably denuded because the conditions were 
favorable to erosion and the shales were easily cut away. After 
a stage of erosive adjustment of this kind, a change of relations 
was brought about by the diversion of the channel of the Mis- 
souri river to some other portion of the broad valley, attended 
by the substitution of a flood plain at the mouth of the tribu- 
tary. As the vertical range of water is now twenty feet or more, 



HUMAN RELICS OF LANSING, KANSAS 



773 



the building up of a normal upper flood plain that much above 
the preceding erosion plain may be assumed. This must have 
been accompanied by a filling up of the lower part of the tribu- 
tary in like measure. More than this, if the diverted stream in 
its new course ran on the opposite side of the bottoms, two 
miles away, the tributary might have also built a fan on the 
surface of the flood plain, with proportional further aggra- 
dation within its mouth. Now this filling up of the axis of 
the valley to the amount indicated, changed the condition of 
the lower sides of the valley, and these became covered with 
lodgment deposits derived from the upper slopes and with silts 
blown up from the Missouri bottoms, an action still in effective 
operation. Such deposits are the normal result of an effort to 
establish a new set of gradients adjusted to a lifted axis. The 
deposit resulting from these combined agencies should be just 
such a mixed nondescript one as the actual case presents, viz., 
a little clear stratification in the lower part, some suggestion of 
stratification of an uncertain sort in the other portions, but no 
complete stratification or assortment ; a general absence of 
declared 'structure, some limestone debris, some shale debris, a 
little drift, some loess wash, some soil wash, with land shells, 
some stream or back-water silt, with river shells — perhaps 
humanly introduced — and some wind silt; and hence, some 
portions unleached and others leached, with other variations 
from a typical unitarian deposit, such as true alluvium on the 
one hand, or typical loess on the other. It seems to me that 
the depth of the deposit is quite within the competency of this 
method, while its general configuration and aspect are in close 
accord with this interpretation. Under this view the burial of 
the human remains took place either during the latest phases 
the erosive process of the stage indicated, or in the early 
phase of the building of the flood plain. The antiquity of the 
burial is measured by the time occupied by the Missouri river in 
lowering its bottoms, two miles more or less in width, somewhere 
from fifteen to twenty-five feet, a very respectable antiquity, 
but much short of the close of the glacial invasion. 

2. Possible but not probable interpretations. — As previously 



774 



T. C. CHAMBERLIN 



indicated, the case is not so declared as to render a given inter- 
pretation wholly certain, and to absolutely exclude all others. 
While I think them quite improbable, other times and methods 
of burial may be entertained as within the bare limits of possi- 
bility. 

1) As noted in the description, there are some small and obscure 
shoulders or terraces at different heights up to sixty feet above 
the upper flood plain of the Missouri river. It is not clear that 
the higher of these are anything but degradational inequalities of 
structural origin, but it may be worth while to recognize that 
these features may possibly be of fluvial origin, and may be 
genetically connected with the lower deposit containing the 
human relics, though there is no clear evidence of this. In this 
case the working level of the river must be placed at perhaps 
sixty feet above that of the present day, and its waters must be 
supposed to have invaded the mouth of the valley more exten- 
sively and deeply. The site of the relics is thus placed in the 
bottom of the ancient river, though not in its main channel. It 
was therefore, more or less subject to the scouring action of 
the river bottom, and to alternate deposition and removal, as set 
forth in the preliminary considerations. At any stage during 
such submersion, when the current of the river was directed 
against the mouth of the tributary, it would be theoretically 
possible for the pre-existing deposit to be scoured out and 
replaced in the manner so constantly illustrated by the present 
action of the river, and in connection with such removal and 
refilling, the relics could be introduced. This would place the 
time of their burial farther back, but probably not so far as even 
the latest stage of the last ice invasion. 

The specific character of the deposit does not seem to me to 
lend support to this interpretation. It is not distinctly and 
specifically fluvial, as it might be expected to be if formed in the 
bottom of the river or in deep and constant water of any kind, 
It bears the aspect of a mixed combination product, such as 
postulated in the previous interpretation. 

2) It may be held that the relics were buried in the early 
stages of the Wisconsin glaciation, when the Missouri river was 



HUMAN RELICS OF LANSING, KANSAS 77$ 



rising because of the rilling of glacial wash poured into it at the 
north. In this case it would be assumed that the tributary val- 
ley had previously been fashioned as it is now, that with the 
filling up of the Missouri valley it also became filled in the 
lower part, involving the burial of the relics, and that with 
the lowering of the Missouri since the glacial period, it has been 
re-excavated to its present extent. In this case the filling should 
have combined the characters of a glacio-fluvial deposit and a 
back-water deposit. The actual deposit does not seem to me 
to be of this kind. The present adjustment of the tributary to 
the Missouri river must also, in this case, be regarded as an 
accident, however improbable. 

3) It has been held by Upham and Wincheli that the loess- 
like deposit covering the relics is a part of the sheet of loess 
that mantles the uplands of this region generally, and is referred 
to the Iowan stage of glaciation, and that the relics were buried 
in the early stages of this accumulation, or earlier. This view 
receives more apparent than real support from the partial resem- 
blance of the upper part of the deposit to loess. As already 
stated, this does not seem to me to be true original loess, either 
of the upland or of the fluvial type, but a secondary deposit, in 
part, and only in part, derived from the loess. If so, its age is 
that of its derivation, not that of the parent loess. Very similar 
deposits seem to have been formed at all ages since the main 
loess epoch, and are being formed now, and apparently must con- 
tinue to be formed as long as the general loess mantle remains 
the chief source of erosion and re-deposition, but these deposits 
generally betray their origin by their secondary characters, as 
in this case. 

4) It is even possible to regard the limestone debris in which 
the skeleton was found as preglacial detritus, buried first by 
the Kansan drift, which was afterward eroded, and then by the 
loess-like deposit ; but in the first place, the detritus is not of 
the distinctive residual surface type, since it is not thoroughly 
weathered and leached as such deposits usually are, and in the 
second place, the hypothesis assumes that the post-Kansan ero- 
sion was adjusted to the preglacial erosion with a degree of 



776 



T. C. CHAMBERLIN 



nicety quite improbable, and in the third place, the view leaves 
very little erosion and deposition to be referred to the long, 
subsequent stages, and in the fourth place, it leaves the adjust, 
ment of the tributary to the Missouri a matter of accident, and 
two accidents of nice adjustment in one hypothesis are some* 
what too many. 

5) At the other extreme, it is perhaps possible to refer the 
burial to very modern action of the Missouri waters at a very 
exceptionally high stage, combined with deposition by the tribu- 
tary, aided by slope wash and creep and wind work from the 
Missouri bottoms. This seems to me, however, to be pressing 
agencies to the limit of their possibilities rather than resting 
with their probabilities within the limits of their more habitual 
action. 

Without holding it to be quite demonstrable, it seems to me 
that the weight of evidence is very strong in favor of the first 
and most conservative interpretation, which finds an apt and 
adequate explanation in the natural order of things. 

In this connection, I beg to invite the attention of archaeolo- 
gists to the slight grounds for hope of finding really strong evi- 
dences of man's antiquity in the fluvial deposits of the glacial 
rivers, because of the liability of these deposits to deep over- 
working by scour-and-fill. On the Ohio, for example, the floods 
are today boring out deep holes in the river and shortly filling 
these again, only to bore and fill somewhere else. It would 
doubtless not be difficult to sow coins of this year's mint over 
the bottom of this river in such a way that a decade hence they 
would be buried a score or some scores of feet in gravel and 
sand ; and what is more, this gravel and sand would be of the 
glacio-fluvial type, since it would be only the true glacio-fluvial 
material rearranged by stream action not unlike that which origi- 
nally formed it. It would hence be stratified, and nearly or 
quite indistinguishable in small sections from the original. The 
same process has been in progress ever since the river began to 
erode the glacial filling. If its early meanders covered the whole 
of the original glacial flood plain, no part of it would be exempt 
from the suspicion of such overworking and natural intrusion. 



HUMAN RELICS OF LANSING, KANSAS 777 



It thus appears that even if the burying gravels were of glacial 
aspect, and the burial were a score or two score, or perhaps even 
three or four score feet deep, it would require careful circum- 
spection to remove legitimate and necessary doubts arising from 
this source. This might be done in special cases on geologic 
grounds, and the r\ature of the human deposit might in other 
cases help to eliminate these sources of doubt, but special and 
strong evidence of this kind is required to make a good case. 

So far as the glacial ages are concerned, evidence of man's 
presence should be sought rather in the interglacial than in the 
equivocal fluvial deposits. With careful identification and rea- 
sonable circumspection, all sources of doubt as to age could 
be removed from the intercalated deposits of the interglacial 
epochs, and as these carry the relics of other life, they are com- 
petent to carry those of man if he really lived in the region at 
the time. 



I am permitted to add the following notes by Professor Calvin 
and Professor Salisbury, who examined the deposit with me, and 
who have been kind enough to read and criticise my manuscript, 
as prepared before my second visit. The observations of that 
visit strengthened the grounds on which they have indicated 
slight divergencies from my views. 

T. C. Chamberlin. 

STATEMENT OF PROFESSOR CALVIN. 

I thank you for the opportunity you have given me to read 
the manuscript of your paper on "The Geologic Relations of the 
Human Relics of Lansing, Kan." I wish to thank you further, 
not for myself alone, but on behalf of all geologists engaged in 
the study of problems similar to the one under discussion, for 
the full and clear presentation of the behavior of rivers of the 
Missouri type in connection with migrations of their meanders, 
of their work in degradation and aggradation, in scour-and-fill, 
while deepening and widening their valleys, and of the chang- 
ing conditions which they impose on their tributaries. The 
application of the principles discussed in the preliminary part 



778 



T. C. CHAMBERLIN 



of the paper to the interpretation of the deposit in which the 
human bones were found near Lansing, Kan., as given in your 
Interpretation i, seems to fit the case and harmonize all the facts 
in a very admirable way. If I were to dissent at all from your 
conclusions as stated in Interpretation I, it would simply be to 
the extent of saying that a lowering of the Missouri valley since 
the bones and associated silts were deposited, through a space 
somewhat less than fifteen or twenty-five feet, would probably 
be amply sufficient. 

Samuel Calvin. 



STATEMENT OF PROFESSOR SALISBURY. 

With the general conclusion of the above paper as expressed 
under the heading, "The most conservative and the most prob- 
able view," I am in perfect accord. If I have any suggestions 
to add, they are the following : 

1. Aside from the distinct layer of clay in one wall of the 
tunnel, I saw no structure which could properly be called strati- 
fication. 

2. The band of water-laid clay seemed to me to imply stagnant 
or essentially stagnant water. I am disposed to refer its origin 
to a time when high water in the Missouri ponded the tributary. 
Since the level of the clay is but a few feet above the historic 
high-water mark of the river, the stream need not have been 
flowing more than a few feet above its present level when the 
clay was deposited. I see no reason for supposing that the 
introduction of the skeleton and the deposition of the clay were 
far separated in time. 

3. The unequivocal layer of water-laid clay seems to me 
strong evidence against the view that the material in which it 
occurs is referable to any of the recognized loess epochs. I have 
seen thousands of sections of loess, but never one with such a 
seam of clay. 

4. I regard the presence of the unio shell as evidence that 
the loess in which the tunnel is dug is not in its original posi- 



HUMAN RELICS OF LANSING, KANSAS 



779 



tion. I am not aware that a unio shell has ever been found in 
undisturbed loess. The presence of the shell in loess talus — for 
that seems to me the proper characterization of the material in 
which the human relics were found — could be readily accounted 
for in various ways, one of which is suggested in the preceding 
pages. 

Rollin D. Salisbury. 



Reviews 



Kakabikansing. By J. V. Brower. St. Paul, Minn.: H. L. 
Collins & Co. 

Under this bizarre title Mr. Brower has described the occurrence 
of quartz chippings at Little Falls, Minn., prefixing a sketch of the 
previous studies of Winchell, Babbitt, Upham, Hill, Holmes, and 
Hershey, and affixing a letter from Professor Winchell and a state- 
ment on "Primitive Man in the Ice Age" by Mr. Warren Upham. 
The descriptions of Mr. Brower are apparently careful and candid, so 
far as intention goes, but they are obviously not those of a critical 
geological observer. They neglect most of the really discriminative 
factors and embrace much inconsequential matter. Notably also they 
have the trait, so common to the untrained worker, of incorporating 
interpretation unconsciously while insisting on " ascertained facts." 
" The glacial river " plays a notable part in the description of the 
formations, whereas the very thing to be demonstrated is the " glacial" 
or non-glacial character of the river at the time the formations in 
question were made. None the less the excellent photographs and the 
maps, together with the statement of Professor Winchell, largely sup- 
ply the lacking data and make it possible to consider whether the 
interpretations put upon them are the normal one's or not. 

From these it appears that there overspreads the plain once occu- 
pied by the Mississippi waters, but now above their reach, a surface 
layer of dirty pebbly sand of the typical structureless kind which 
usually covers abandoned flood plains of sand and gravel. This is 
about four feet thick and at places near the river contains many chips 
of white vein quartz of undoubted human origin. The source of the 
quartz is unquestionably the veins in the outcropping slate over which 
the falls are formed. This quartz- bearing slate does not now rise as 
high as the upper surface of the plain, and this fact has been urged by 
Holmes and Hershey as evidence that the quartz chippings were not 
taken from the parent ledge until the plain had been cut down to the 
requisite depth after its original completion. Mr. Brower, while not 
answering this objection by positive evidence, holds that the crest of 
the quartz-bearing ledge was exposed at seasons of low water, though 

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REVIEWS 



covered at times of flood. It is of course probable that the crest of 
the ledge has been worn down where the river flows over.it, but such 
erosive covering by the river does not fit in well with the view that 
this same portion was the source whence large quantities of vein 
quartz were quarried at the same time. It is clearly urging a bare 
possibility at best rather than a probable occurrence. 

If, however, the case rested merely on the possibility of reaching 
the source of the quartz while yet the uppermost layers of the original 
plain were in the process of formation, it might be ungenerous to 
refuse to entertain the utmost possibilities of the case in favor of 
glacial man in America. But the facts of the case, taken just as given 
in this paper, do not seem to the reviewer to afford even a plausible 
ground for assigning the quartz chips to the glacial stage of the river. 
The surface deposit in which they are found, as described and illus- 
trated in the paper, not only does not bear the characteristics of a 
glacio-fluvial deposit, but bears quite clear evidence that it is not 
glacio-fluvial. The descriptions cite the fact that the surface deposit 
is highest near the bank of the present bottoms, after the common 
habit of existing degrading rivers. This habit is recognized and the 
facts are summarized in the following quotation (p. 73): "At Little 
Falls, Minn., the eastern portion of the sandy plain on the east side of 
the Mississippi is several feet lower than the crest of the plain at the 
east end of the dam. That fact is important. After the great 
glacial river which overspread the entire plain at Little Falls had with- 
drawn into the narrower limits of an eroded streambed, that river, 
often in freshet from the effects of the melting ice-sheet, occasionally 
re-overflowed the entire plain, disturbing and overturning the sandy 
surface, mixing into its materials every chipped quartz blade or spall 
which had been placed by the hand of man upon the surface adjoin- 
ing the newly eroded and narrower channel. The higher altitudes of 
the plain along the Mississippi between 'The Notch' and the dam 
were caused by successive stages of recurring overflowage, creating 
additional surface deposits upon the plain nearest to the newly formed 
river bank." This is indeed " important," as the author himself 
naively remarks, since it shows, as the author also recognizes with 
equal unconsciousness of its real meaning, that it is the characteristic 
action of streams of the present non-glacial regime. It is here recog- 
nized, with undoubted correctness, that the quartzes were buried "by 
disturbing and overturning the- sandy surface" and by "additional 
surface deposits." The reference of this, however, to glacial waters is 



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796 



wholly without evidence and quite against the probabilities. Glacial 
streams as a rule have the aggrading habit, and are not therefore 
"withdrawn into the narrower limits of an eroded streambed," but on 
the contrary, are constantly shifting their courses from one point to 
another across their whole plain. Usually they subdivide into a com- 
plex plexus of numerous shallow shifting branches. There is there- 
fore no reason whatever to suppose that the present channel of the 
Mississippi at Little Falls was in existence, even in its initial stages, 
while the river remained truly a glacial stream. - The fact that the 
relic-bearing deposit is closely related to the present stream is evidence 
that it was postglacial. The deposit that carries the relics supports 
the same view, for it bears the characteristics of a postglacial rather 
a glacial formation. On the evidence submitted, therefore, in the 
paper the inference is rather imperative that the quartz chips were 
buried at some stage when postglacial rather than glacial conditions 
prevailed. To make this more clear, it may be worth while to sketch 
the normal succession of events and to gather from these the normal 
interpretation of the time and mode of burial of the quartz chips, 
assuming, as everywhere throughout this review, the complete trust- 
worthiness of the evidence given in the paper, especially that afforded 
by its excellent photographic illustrations. 

1. During the time the glacial border lay across the sources of the 
Mississippi and it was therefore truly a glacial stream, the normal 
inference is that it had the aggrading habit because of its overburden 
of glacial detritus ; that it took the form of a plexus of numerous 
branchlets, and that it occupied, by the constant shifting of these, 
the whole plain which it was engaged in building up. In the nature 
of the case it should normally have no fixed channel nor any perma- 
nent flood plain deposit, since its whole plain was periodically covered 
by the channels of the branching and shifting streams. Its typical 
deposits should have been clean, fresh, well-assorted stratified sands 
and gravels. Any human relics left anywhere on the plain, even on 
portions not at the time occupied by the stream, should have been 
worked over and incorporated more or less deeply by scour-and-fill in 
the clean, stratified gravels and sands. None such are reported. 

2. When the glacier had retired from the basin and no longer 
overloaded the Mississippi with its detritus, a transition stage should 
naturally have followed. During this the first work was to adjust the 
stream to the conditions that immediately followed the glacial retreat. 
It is to be presumed that the upper branches of the river were aggraded 



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REVIEWS 



to different slopes, dependent on their relations to the glacial supply 
of detritus thrown into them. As a rule, the gradient is much higher 
near the ice edge than at a distance from it. These high gradients are 
presumably the first to be reduced, while the material so derived is 
shifted to the lower gradients which continue their aggradation until 
the whole becomes adjusted to the new conditions. It must also be 
considered whether the fresh drift surfaces left by the recent retreat 
of the ice and the numerous new trenches of the young streams engaged 
in developing the new drainage system may not have kept the Missis- 
sippi in an aggrading, or at least static condition for a notable period 
after the direct influence of the ice sheet was withdrawn. Any human 
relics left on the plain during this stage should normally have been 
subject to incorporation by scour-and-fill in the clean, fresh, stratified 
gravel. But none are reported. 

3. After the stage of transition had passed and the Mississippi had 
assumed the degradational phase, a period must probably be recog- 
nized during which its shifting meanders occupi'ed the whole of its 
plain — except occasional protected embayments — and degraded it 
from side to side, removing the whole surface of the previous glacio- 
fluvial and transitional-adjustment plain. This action is dependent 
on the balance of prevailing conditions, and these vary for different 
rivers and different portions of the same river. To a large extent, the 
Mississippi has continued action of this phase down to the present time 
and has cut away the whole of the upper part of the glacio fluvial plain. 
It is only here and there in favored localities that any remnants that 
can with probability be regarded as portions of the upper glacio fluvial 
plain can now be recognized at any great distance from the ice edge. 
Just how long the river would continue to occupy by its shifting courses 
the whole upper plain at Little Falls cannot be determined by any evi- 
dence given in the paper, but the stage should be recognized in the 
interpretation of the history of the region, and particularly in the 
determination of the age of the surface deposits of the plain as it now 
exists. Any human relics left on the plain in this stage would be liable 
to be incorporated in the clean stratified gravel by scour-and-fill. But 
none are reported. 

4. After the stages above noted had passed, the river developed a 
more restricted track and limited its erosion essentially to this, sinking 
its channel gradually into the broad plain and covering the remainder 
only in flood time. It would continue to flood the upper plain until 
the channel reached a depth greater than the height of the flood stages. 



REVIEWS 



798 



What this height is habitually in this part of the Mississippi is not 
known to the reviewer. The range between low and high water is 
given by Abbott as twenty feet at St. Paul, thirty-five feet at the mouth 
of the Missouri, and fifty feet at some points below. From the data 
given in the paper, it would appear that in the natural river, before 
influenced by damming, the low water was from twenty to twenty-five 
feet below the main plain. If, therefore, an average flood stage were 
applicable to this locality, the deepening of the channel since the river 
floods rose to the plain could be estimated at only a few feet, but the 
barrier formed by the slate renders an estimate of the time very uncer- 
tain. If the slate were once much higher than now, it should have 
kept the river longer within reach of the plain at flood time, so that 
the hypothesis that the slate has been notably cut down by the river, 
introduced to avoid the criticisms of Holmes and Hershey, is not with- 
out its embarrassments in another direction. 

Now, it seems clear from the evidence presented in the paper that 
the quartz chips were not spread over the plain while the clean strati- 
fied gravels were being formed, nor while the river was meandering 
over the plain in its transitional-adjustment stage, nor in its general 
degradational stage, for at all of these stages, scour-and-fill should 
have incorporated the chips in the stratified sands and gravels. The 
chips were quite clearly introduced after the Mississippi had "with- 
drawn into the narrower limits of an eroded stream bed" and while 
only its flood stages overflowed the upper plain. This normally 
occurred in the fourth stage sketched above. As the recent cutting 
down of the channel has been slow on account of the slate barrier, a 
very considerable period has probably elapsed since the Mississippi 
last reached the upper plain even in its highest flood stages, except as 
these might be made exceptional by ice jams and similar obstructions. 
This gives the origin of the chips a respectable antiquity, but does not 
offer any presumption that it fell within the glacial period, or even 
very near its close. This seems to the reviewer to be the normal inter- 
pretation of the evidence presented in the paper. 

T. C. C. 



Editorial. 



The discovery of human remains under twenty feet of debris 
near Lansing, Kan., has revived interest in the antiquity of man 
in America, and fortunately on more hopeful lines than hereto- 
fore, since the mode of occurrence at Lansing is more definitely 
determinate than in most previous cases of the kind, and the 
geologic elements of the problem are more declared, though, as 
it happens, they belong to a much overlooked yet very common 
type. The recent studies of Brower and Winchell on the 
quartz chips at Little Falls have brought that case into more 
definite form. 

There remain about the same differences of interpretation as 
heretofore, but these will pass away as the specific identification 
of glacio-fluvial, alluvial, and sub-aerial adjustment deposits 
becomes more familiar and precise, and as their interpretation is 
at once given greater latitude and made more strictly dependent 
on discriminative criteria. 

In the judgment of the writer, neither of the above cases 
affords any substantial ground for affirming the presence of 
man in America during the glacial period ; but they do afford a 
strong presumption that man in this country has witnessed very 
notable progress in the deepening of the channels of the 
Missouri and Mississippi rivers. In time there may be found 
means for estimating the rate at which these rivers are lowering 
their channels, but at present these are wanting, and there is no 
trustworthy method of estimating in years the time.-consumed 
in the deepening which has taken place since the human relics 
were buried. 

T. C. C. 



793 




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